Kinship
by Hetep-Heres
Summary: A heart to heart talk between Sybil and Matthew in July 1914. They talk about the coming new baby, Matthew's proposal and future, Mary, and Sybil's view on love, life and marriage.


**Kinship**

_July 1914_

Sybil Crawley was happy. Life was beautiful.

She had just had her long awaited first London Season and had been presented. She now was considered an adult in the eyes of society. Well, of _her_ society anyway... She had made some friends her age outside her family during theses balls and parties, enlarging her little world somehow.

And she was going to have a little brother or sister.

_That_ had been unexpected. But the whole family and staff had met this as a wonderful surprise.

Well, _nearly_ everyone did, anyway.

It was always difficult to know what Mary truly thought behind her aparent façade of always perfectly honed and socially tuned countenance. She was always in representation, and this time even Sybil herself had some difficulties knowing what exactly Mary thought of the situation.

But at least, as she hadn't turned Matthew down straight away, she was at least seriously still considering his yet unanswered proposal.

To Matthew and Isobel, it could change things considerably, of course, were the baby to be a boy. But despite a bit of awkwardness about all this, Matthew wasn't making a long face of it, and as always he seemed to take the rough with the smooth; he even seemed to be genuinely happy for the happiness befalling his cousins.

Smiling from ear to ear at the idea of soon becoming a 'big sister' and not anymore being the baby of this family, Sybil was sitting on a secluded bench in the park, basking in the fresh shadow of a nearby tree protecting her from the hot July sun.

She had been seeking some privacy to read her mail, letters she had just received from her friends, both long-time acquaintances and new friends she made during the London Season. And as some of these letters were from male friends, she had sought the privacy of the park to read them away from any prying eyes.

Still smiling, Sybil got up and made her way back home. Half way to the entrance though, she ran into Matthew who was taking a stroll on his own around the grounds.

"Oh," he said on spotting her, "good afternoon Sybil!"

"Matthew! How nice to meet you here! Papa didn't tell me you were to come! Is Cousin Isobel here too?"

"She is inside, providing your mother with a lot of medical advice Cousin Cora certainly doesn't need, considering she has already brought to the world three perfect daughters..."

Sybil laughed a bit, and Matthew followed suit.

"Oh, I don't know about perfect," she answered, blushing slightly, "but perfectly healthy, yes, thank you very much."

"And smiling, as for you. Your mail must have brought you pleasant news to make you so dreamily happy!" Matthew teased her.

"W-what?" Sybil spluttered. "No... no! I mean... yes, but that's not that. These are just letters from some friends," she added raising the envelopes between them. "This one is from Tom Bellasis – he is very funny; this one from my friend Imogen – she was presented this year too; and that one from Larry Grey – he is rather funny too, likes to play tricks... But in fact I was thinking about something completely different... I'm afraid you caught me daydreaming." She smiled again, but to him this time and not to herself.

"Happy to leave your place as the youngest, are you?" he asked with a broad teasing grin.

"Can't hide anything fom you, can I?" she mimicked his tone.

"For real?" he asked, seriously this time. "Are you truly happy to be a big sister?"

"Why wouldn't I?" sybil asked, bemused.

"Well, sometimes this position as the youngest one is quite comfortable, after all... You're sort of the mascot of the family–"

"The _mascot?!_" she shouted, slightly miffed and dismayed.

"Err– right, maybe not the best choice of word," Matthew conceded. "Let's say... the little darling everyone is a bit sweet on?"

Apparently it didn't sound really better to her ears, 'little' being a bit patronising to a young Lady who had been presented and had just made the London Season.

"Well, I'm passing on and giving up this position and my title of 'mascot' with no regret and no envy, I assure you."

"Really? Won't you regret it, and the unwritten privileges attached to it?"

"Such as?"

"I don't know... no one is breathing down your neck, you do what you want, and most of the time you get away with everything because people are touched and moved by your sweetness..."

"I don't– I don't get away with everything, as you say!" Sybil exclaimed, a bit indignant. "And do you think I will stop being sweet to people just because I have a baby brother or sister?" she then asked, a bit calmer. "I'm not some envious child, and it won't change anything to who I am."

"But it will change how people percieve you," Matthew pointed out

"Well, I don't care how people see me!" she assured, head high.

Matthew smiled sweetly.

"Dear Cousin Sybil," he gently and pensievely told her, "whether you like it or not, you are still very much a child..."

She looked away. Was it to avoid that he could see her make a face? Not sure, he thought, maybe she was just pondering this.

Then she hooked her arm through his and resumed walking dragging him in step with her.

"And what about you, Cousin Matthew?" she asked abruptly.

"What about me?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Well, yes. If that baby changes things a bit for me, for us all around here, it certainly can change them much more for you!"

Matthew didn't answer right away.

"Would it be a boy," Sybil went on, not pulling her punches, "this will then set up a whole new deal, here... Are you sure you're alright with that? Entirely alright?"

He slowly turned to her and stopped walking, looking straight at her.

"And who is accusing the other of being envious, now?" he asked. But there was not an ounce of reproach in his tone, no; it was more an amused one.

"Don't even think you can avoid answering my question by wriggling out of it, Matthew. That's a genuine one." She paused, and then: "I'm concerned about you, that's all. About how you feel considering this whole situation. Truly I am."

She patted his hand.

"I believe you," he told her, offering her a genuine smile. "I know you, I know how you are, you just want each and everyone around you to be as happy as you are..."

He went quiet.

"So...?" she softly pried after a few seconds.

"So I guess..." he began, "I guess... would you have asked this one or two years ago, I could have answered you straight away that in addition to being delighted to have another cousin to broaden my narrow number of relatives, I didn't mind seeing Downton being passed on to someone else. I had an equally interesting and happy life in Manchester and wouldn't have minded going back there."

"Oh, Matthew, surely Papa wouldn't–"

"No he wouldn't, in fact he offered my mother and I the usufruct of Crawley House whatever the outcome."

"Oh, I'm glad. Not that I wasn't already certain he would, but that way I'm sure you'll stay with us in Downton and not–"

"Dear Sybil," he cut her softly, "I hate to damper your sweet and warming enthousiasm, but it's not yet so sure... Oh, it hasn't anything to do with the baby," he hastily told her seeing her jerk her head up with an inquisitive look in her eyes. "I mean I haven't decided anything in case..."

He didn't have the heart to finish his sentence, but light dawned in Sybil's mind the same instant, and in a murmur she just said: "Mary..."

He only nodded slowly, confirming she got what he meant.

"Anyway," he went on, changing topic or rather going back to their initial subject of conversation, "I'm really delighted to have another cousin to dot on, be it a little boy or a little girl, and I'm sure I will be as fond of him or her as I am of you. Of you all."

Sybil smiled fondly at him. "I'm sure you will. I'm sure we all will. And I hope you know we're also all very fond of you. Whatever the outcome." He didn't know whether she was referring to the baby's gender or to his meandering situation with her eldest sister, and maybe Sybil wasn't sure either.

Matthew took a deep breath, and in a significantly lower voice, he added:

"But now... Now I must admit I've grown attached to Downton, to the idea that one day I'll be responsible for it. Now I love my life here; and I love being part of your family, finally having relatives beside Mother."

"But you will always have us, whatever–"

Matthew held his right hand up to stop her.

"I know, I know, I don't doubt you. But maybe part of me had grown accustomed with this whole... this whole title and estate thing... Maybe I've changed more than I like to think I have, somewhere along these two past years. Whether I like it or not..."

Sybil didn't dare interrupt him, as it was as though he was thoughtfully talking to himself rather than to her. She pondered what he had just said. Was it possible to change that much just by being accepted as part of the family and living in close relationship with them? Were _they_ responsible for his change? Was it a good change as in 'getting closer to one's relatives' and 'having a family one trusts and can rely on', or a bad change as in 'granting importance to such things as title and nobility' and 'losing one's independence and free spirit'?

Or maybe he had changed because of this _thing_ he has with Mary? And why on earth hadn't she answered his proposal yet? What was she waiting for? Sybil was sure her sister was in love with Matthew. Well, according to the very little she knew about love.

She glanced at him. He looked a bit glum, subdued. Forlorn.

"I'm sure Mary will give you her answer very soon," she told him with a reassuring smile, giving his arm a light squeeze. "After all, a woman can't keep a man waiting and holding his breath for months and months, that wouldn't be quite fair and correct; she won't keep you on tenterhooks for too long now I'm sure."

"I really like your positive and optimistic view on life and on people, Sybil, and sometimes I envy you it. But I'm afraid the current situation will put Mary's answer on hold for the six or seven months to come."

"I really can't see wh–" Sybil began.

"I think you do, on the contrary, but you're just too fair-hearted to accept the idea and aknowledge it. Let's face the truth, Sybil: if you have a baby sister, nothing will change much: I'd still be the heir to the Earl of Grantham and the future owner of Downton Abbey, its estate, its fortune and the incomes attached to its land. And the future local lord and master. By marrying me, Mary's life wouldn't change much from what it is now, in fact it wouldn't change at all; so there would be no unknown nor uncertainty to be afraid of, and she'd eventually come back to live in the very castle she's been raised and grew up in, and with the same way of life she has always known and that's always been hers."

Sybil didn't say anything but silently nodded.

"Now, would the baby be a boy..." he began, "well, in that eventuality, I will forever be some middle-class sollicitor, living in a far simpler house and with a far different lifestyle, with absolutely no dazzling title nor immense wealth to make for it. And no reason for it to change–"

"It doesn't matter!" Sybil objected.

"To you, I'm sure it doesn't. But what you apparently don't understand, Sybil, is that not everybody is like you are, nor _has_ to. You sure can be happy in a simpler life, living the life my mother and I live in Crawley house, not having a whole staff preempting your every need – even though I'm not sure you've ever tried to make your own bed or to do your hair yourself."

Seeing her blush, Matthew knew he had just hit the bull's eye. He smiled to himself to Sybil's enthousiasm but utter ingenuousness and candour.

"But Mary... she hasn't chosen it, but she knows she needs to lead the life of a Lady. And a wealthy life. To throw dinners and parties, to socialise with people from your world..."

"Mary isn't that shallow! I thought you knew her–"

"I do!" he assured her.

"Then why do you say–" she stopped to collect herself. "She loves you Matthew, I'm sure she does, she can see past this. If you love her and if she loves you, that's all there should be, that's it, and none of you should let details stand in the way and prevent you from trying to be happy together! Don't see the picture darker than it is: Mary wouldn't play with your feelings, I'm sure the baby's gender is not what prevents her from giving you her answer. If she truly loves you I'm sure she'd marry you even if the baby were to be a boy."

"But maybe then _I_ am the one who wouldn't want of this marriage..." he then said in a very low voice.

"WHAT?!" Sybil shouted, utterly surprised.

He didn't say anything but looked uncomfortably down at his feet.

"Why?" Sybil asked again. "What do you mean?"

"As I told you just now, Mary needs to live the kind of life she has lived here since her birth. She can only be happy in some version of Downton Abbey, and I couldn't make her happy with the only life I could offer her then, I've finally understood that... Took me a while, but I did. So maybe I should put my proposal on hold until your new sibling is born."

"I disagree," Sybil firmly stated.

"Well, too bad for you that you have no say in the matter, then," Matthew told her. But he did so with a sweet and endearing smile, so that it was impossible for Sybil to resent him for it.

"But if you love someone," Sybil insisted, "then I think such things as title or estate or castle or immense wealth or throwing parties are secondary matters, aren't they?"

"I'm sure you do," Matthew gently told her, "You are one of the most good-hearted persons I've known, and there's somewhere out there a young baronet or Lord or Honourable that is a very lucky man, or will be when you fall in love with him and accept to marry him." He looked fondly at her, a sweet smile on his lips.

Sybil felt herself blush. Not because she misinterpreted her cousin's words, no: she knew exactly the nature of the nearly brotherly affection he had for her and that she returned him, and didn't mistook it for what he was feeling for Mary. But his praise and the prospect of her own wedding and love life with some yet faceless gentleman was enough to make an eighteen years-old young girl blush.

"I don't know about that..." she whispered.

But Matthew felt like teasing her further and added:

"Or maybe a fellow sollicitor..."

"Well," Sybil told him after regaining some countenance, "why that? Do you have some co-worker in mind?" she asked playfully.

He made a show of searching his mind.

"Hmm... no, I couldn't do that to them," he finally said in a drawl.

"And why, pray tell?" Sybil asked, playing along but a bit miffed at his about-turn from praising her to teasing her. "Am I that much a pain to be around that you want to spare your friends from my presence?"

He laughed.

"Oh no, but I can't quite figure Cousin Robert's face if yet another sollicitor with no title nor fortune were to enter the family. Not to speak of Cousin Violet's!"

At her grandmother's name, Sybil stiffled a laugh.

Matthew went on: "The poor man would face a real inquisition to whether he is worthy of you or not. Well, if Cousin Robert doesn't have a stroke when he hears of it, that is..."

"Anyway," Sybil answered, "If I choose this yet unknown man, then he certainly will have many qualities and virtues that make someone worthy of love and esteem; so I'm afraid that, be it a sollicitor or a crown prince, Papa and Granny would have nothing to do but to suck it up!"

They both laughed at this idea and then, arm in arm, the two cousins resumed their walk to the castle, still uncertain of what the future had in store for them, be it in the following weeks, months, or in the long run.

And anyway, was it really wise to make plans right then? Everyone was saying that a war was brewing...


End file.
